What Happens When: Kampongcham Catches the Fiddle Fever
Chomriabsua!
So I guess from the subject line, y'all know now that the most historic day in Sister Haddock's mission was July 5th, 2016 - the day Sister Haddock got to play a violin in sroke Khmer!!!! There were a few tears of joy and a lot of happy tunes in our house that night. Even the land lord who lives down stairs called us over and made us myboy-onion-jam-ketchup-sandwhiches while I played for her. Better yet, on Wednesday, I got to fiddle in English Class with the famous Elder Curtis on the guitar. Bluegrass has officially hit Cambodia everyone! And so far, the results are looking great! I will be fiddling for the pioneer celebration coming up. Super excited. We are now focusing on finding new investigators as a zone in KC by counting referrals sough each day. We had a great zone training on Friday full of policy changes and new goals for the rest of the year. Some of those changes include a change in curfew, buying bikes, mosquito spray, long skirts, and a new motivation to be healthier. There are a lot of sick missionaries here and in neighboring missions, so we are making an effort to be more healthy. They bought us blenders and changed the curfew to earlier so now we get a dinner break. It'll be interesting to see how this changes some of the dynamics of our mission. I think that we will definitely receive BIG blessings according to our obedience to the new changes. President is an inspired man! So glad we are in good care. Also, I think the investigators will start popping up everywhere now as we really seek referrals. Also, highlight of Zone training is that Elder and Sister Curtis made me a chocolate cake for my birthday. How nice are they? SO NICE. It was the best birthday present away from home. We did a lot of service on Saturday morning and I'm actually sore! We weeded a corn field out in Roang and then went straight to moving a HUGE pile of 8000 bricks for a lady in our area. Though most things are super inefficient (like moving bricks by carrying them 4 at a time in our arms) I was glad to help and serve these people.
For a two week period in august we will have only 80 missionaries in all of Cambodia when a group goes home and the new ones don't come for a while. So, they are giving an opportunity for the YW/YM 17 and older to serve a "mini-mission" for 2 weeks. They will be companions with one of us Sisters or an Elder and do exactly as the missionaries do for a whole 2 weeks 24/7. Like a 2 week split! I'm way excited for these youth to see what serving a mission is actually like and what we do all day. It'll be quite interesting to see how this all plays out. I'm super excited for those that will get this experience that may not have the opportunity to serve a full-time mission because of various circumstances. I'm way excited! This has never been done before here!
I've been asked what kinda weird things I've been eating lately, I guess you can add shrimp crackers to the list... these are not your average shrimp flavored crackers you're thinking of... these have the actual shrimps cooked into them. kinda like a stale pancake. Also we eat dragon fruit, mangosteen, longans, rice porrige that tastes like pho and has pig blood in it, and sour fruits in a spicy seafood sauce every single day! It's all pretty healthy!
This week the investigators we were meeting all kinda dropped off the grid for a bit, sad, but we won't let it get us down. Jariyaa is still doing good though! She came to church yesterday and after the opening prayer, she said, "sister. yeeng athithan hauy khnom sbaay nah. dooc sbaay men ten. rohot mong!" (sister. we pray, I feel so happy. Like so happy for real. Forever!!) I've never gotten so much satisfaction out of the opening prayer before. She's a keeper! Also, typing in Khmenglish is so much better than typing in english because that is how my brain works now. There isn't actually a romanization for Khmer, but I don't know how to type in Khmae.. so that will have to work. My english is getting more awkward as time goes on. Quite entertaining. At least my companion understands what I want to say most the time. Back to Jariyaa, we had a great lesson on the doctrine of Christ and when we taught her about repentance she just was really taking it to heart. She called her mom over from down the street and apologized to her, really asking for forgiveness for some things she had done. Then Jariyaa just kept telling us we needed to be done with our lesson so she could pray. So. good! Her mom was just being the average Khmer mom, not really showing any emotion about it or anything, but I know that Jariyaa's actions and desire to change effected her mom a lot. She accepted to give Jariyaa permission to be baptized right then! If you were reading like 3 months ago, you know that Jariyaa's mom already gave her permission but since we have to teach her all the lessons again, she got permission again! Super cool.
Not too much else happened this week, we are just on the hunt for people to teach! There are miracles left and right when we show our faith and just get out and look for opportunities to find the people with prepared hearts. When we are obedient to Heavenly Father's commandments, we are blessed! It's that simple! I'm loving being a missionary, and I'm loving this work. I'm so grateful everyday for the opportunity to serve Heavenly Father's children here in Cambodia. I love it all!
Miss you all, love you all too.
Love,
Sister Haddock
I'm a happy Witty and our backyard is pretty
We climbed the BOM tower again with a new group of elders this time and they cried because heights and a rickety metal ladder. We just laughed at them. Sister Nit and I are champion climbers now.
Shrimps